Although he said this over fifty times, I could not
help laughing when _Laura_ would come. Carlyle running his chin out
when he spoke it, and his eyes glancing till they looked like the eyes
and beak of a bird of prey.
Poor Laura! Luckily for her that her poet had already got her safely
canonized beyond the reach of this Teufelsdroeckh vulture.
"The worst of hearing Carlyle is, that you cannot interrupt him. I
understand the habit and power of haranguing have increased very much
upon him, so that you are a perfect prisoner when he has once got hold
of you. To interrupt him is a physical impossibility. If you get a
chance to remonstrate for a moment, he raises his voice and bears
you down. True, he does you no injustice, and, with his admirable
penetration, sees the disclaimer in your mind, so that you are not
morally delinquent; but it is not pleasant to be unable to utter it.
The latter part of the evening, however, he paid us for this, by a
series of sketches, in his finest style of railing and raillery, of
modern French literature, not one of them, perhaps, perfectly just,
but all drawn with the finest, boldest strokes, and, from his point of
view, masterly.
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